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The
Monastery of the Sacré-Coeur |
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Old
people's home of Fort-Manoir |
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It is in the
country cottage of La Verrière, that the day the
community of Norbertines of the Mesnil-Saint-Denis saw.
Our sisters were indeed temporarily installed there on
July 2, 1889. Very quickly become not very functional,
the moniales left the country cottage a few months only
after their installation, for an old middle-class house
located in the hamlet of Mousseau. It is here, October 19
1889 that the Bishop of Versailles, Monseigneur Goux,
canonically set up the "Couvent du Sacré-Coeur des
Tertiaires Norbertines régulières". |
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It is to Marie Adèle
Alexandra Husson-Carcenac, girl of great family and great
fortune, who tested the need to give up all her
advantages of her birth to devote itself to God, that we
owe this vast project, supported by his mother Pauline
Carcenac and of Monseigneur Théophile Cosnilleau
(1838-1915), chaplain of the castle and Camérier of His
Holiness the Pope, and encouraged by the Reverend Père
Joseph Lanfranc de Panthou, about Prémontré,
Sous-Prieur of the Abbey of Mondaye to the diocese of
Bayeux, like by the Reverend Père Joseph Villekens,
abbot of Mondaye and by Paul Goux, bishop of Versailles. |
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Construction was
hardly the one year business: the first stone was bénite
on April 10, 1894 by the Father Godefroid Madelaine
(1842-1932), prior of highly skilled Mondaye then abbot
of the Saint-Michel de Frigolet, and the inauguration was
made on July 23, 1895 by the bishop of Versailles. The
construction of the building was entrusted to Victor Hue
de la Colombe (Paris 1833-Dinan 1922) architect of the
town of Paris with which we owe the Markets of Besancon,
the houses of the Market of Versailles and the Basilica
of Sainte-Anne d' Auray, without forgetting the chapel of
the castle of the Mesnil-Saint-Denis whom the Husson
family made build ten years earlier.
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The monastery was
then a modern monastery with vast buildings comprising
classrooms and dormitories to the destination of orphan,
of pretty gardens, a farm, meadows, and in the wing
reserved for the Sisters, all the severe apparatus of the
cloîtrés convents: covered galleries which form
cloister, sewing rooms, cells, closed garden and a pretty
chapel of Gothic style. Wanting to enter fully the spirit
of saint Norbert, Révérende Mother fondatrice, Marie
Adele Alexandra Husson-Carcenac in religion Marie Mère
de la Nativité, decided to annex an orphanage at the
Community. Opened at the time of the foundation it
sheltered 18 orphan for 18 Sisters, each sister being the
spiritual mother of the one of them. In 1903, the
moniales underwent the laws against the religious
Congregations. |
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An ordinance of the
bishop of Versailles raised the fence in 1919. During the
period of the Large War, the Monastery of Mousseau was
transformed into Temporary Hospital, for the war wounded.
The Sisters opened an ambulance of 50 beds in the room of
the orphanage, as well as a free dispensary for the
patients of the Mesnil-Saint-Denis and the surroundings.
This ambulance was constant financially by Mrs Pauline
Husson-Carcenac. |
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In 1940, the 40
Sisters dealt with 50 children. In 1945, the Monastery
was tiny room to the statute of congregation of the
regular Third-Order of Prémontré. In 1948, the Sisters
wrote new constitutions entitled "Constitutions de
la Congrégation des Religieuses Tertiaires Réguliers de
l'ordre de Prémontré dites du Mesnil-Saint-Denis".
In 1956, the sisters were forced to sell their monastery
become too tall. This one was bought by Oblates de l'Assomption,
was founded in 1845 by the Father of Alzon, and installed
there a convalescent home for their Sisters old. During
more than twenty years, they accomodate groups of young
people and less young people of the area for days of
relaxation and retirement. |
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In 1975, the house
is approved by the DDASS. In 1982, the community is
entrusted to Soeur Genevieve-Marie, who proposes a plan
of restoration which also envisages an enlarging to allow
the reception of laic people. Significant work begins in
1991 and the old monastery can shelter today 65 people in
superb buildings. The inauguration was made on October
28, 1995 by the former Prime Minister Edouard Balludur
accompanied by his Marie-Josèphe wife, in the presence
of many personalities of the political scene, of which
the prefect Claude Erignac. Each year in May, of the
"Journées d'Amitié" are organized with the
profit of Association Notre-Dame de l'Assomption. |
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© Olivier FAUVEAU
- 2001 |
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